The Fin-de-Siècle 'Femme Fatale' and the God Pan

Abstract

This study offers a reading of the widespread character type of the ‘Femme Fatale’ which focuses on the developments of this figure as a trope of Decadent literature in British works of the 1890s. In particular, the paper finds an element of comparison between the Decadent orientation towards an instrumental depiction of the Orient and the portrayal, in theater and fiction, of mysterious and seductive women corresponding to the trope. The texts used to illustrate the functional role of these female characters are Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé and Arthur Machen’s novella The Great God Pan, both of which employ aestheticizing strategies that are meant to elevate the object of desire by making it inaccessible. These strategies are ultimately defined as a process of identification between Wilde’s and Machen’s female protagonists and the features, or remnants, of a remote, pagan past.